Updates from the edge of the Web

Concept Series: Phones and OSs

Since the launch of the Mozilla Labs’ Concept Series, we’ve had hundreds of people join in a shared exploration of design directions for Firefox, the Mozilla project, and the Web as a whole.

Responding to the call for participation, Billy May has been taking a look at what a phone might look like in this context. What would the ultimate web phone look like? What would give it Mozilla DNA? He’s put up an interesting throw-away “Open Web Concept Phone” as a Blackberry meets interactive OLED keyboard.

In a similar vein, Adaptive Path’s contribution to the Concept Series, Aurora, explores what a Mozilla phone and OS might look like; taking the concept of Mozilla Lab’s Weave to the extreme, letting the Web be the unifying agent between computer, mobile, and wall-sized interactions.

While Mozilla doesn’t have plans to produce an OS or phone hardware at the moment — this doesn’t mean that either are out of scope for Mozilla Labs and that’s the point of the Concept Series. Everything is on the table.

This is just the start and we’re excited to be working with people from around the world in a shared exploration of new ideas.

Last semester I used Mozilla’s future of innovation as my final project topic for my Innovation & Progress class. I developed a concept of a function that could be integrated with Fennec and a future RFID enabled phone to pioneer simple ubiquitous computing using existing technologies.

I’m really tired of the lack of originality that has become the norm. Everyone’s gunning to take down the IPhone by producing a product that out “out IPhones the IPhone.” Follow me? good. What you guys are doing is fantastic. Originality is what apple on top. Come out with something no one has ever seen before and everyone will want it, and I believe Mozilla labs has a great chance of doing just that from their current product history. Come on guys! Put your minds together and blow mine with something new and exciting!